THE MATRIX vs. PLATO
The Captives
In The Matrix (1999), humans are kept captive by the machines that control the world. Used as a power source to fuel the machines themselves, humans are kept in incubation tanks, an illusory world keeping them calm and at ease, not realizing their reality an illusion.
Shadow of the Spectacle
The world inside the Matrix is an imitation of modern day reality. The illusion of the real world and everyone in it are the shadows the prisoners in the Cave see and what they perceive as reality. Like the prisoners, the people in the Matrix have never actually experienced the real world.
Cave Dweller
The Architect, the creator of the Matrix, plays the role of the cave dweller. He constructs the fantasy world of the Matrix world to keep the humans passive and easy prey to the machines.
The Prisoner Escapes
With the help of Morpheus, Trinity, and others aboard the ship the Nebuchadnezzar, Neo is "being unchained or, in this case unplugged," and escapes his binds (William Irwin quoted in The Matrix: Revisited, 2009).
The Prisoner Moves Towards the Light
The prophesy in the film that Neo is the One who has the ability to control the Matrix is Neo's journey towards the light. He may have left the Matrix, the metaphysical manifestation of the Cave, but his journey toward enlightenment is not yet complete.
The Prisoner Exits the Cave
Neo's journey toward enlightenment is complete when he accepts his destiny in the final battles against Agent Smith. The first battle occurs in the first film, with Neo finally realizing his potential in his ability to manipulate physics in the Matrix world. In The Matrix Revolutions (2003), Neo accepts his fate. While destroying Smith, he fulfills his destiny, becoming the One and thereby enlightened, and dies, or as Lana Wachowski explains, there is a "transcendence of a material identity" (quoted in Poland, 2012).
